John Woo’s “The Crossing” Begins Filming
Copyright issues, casting problems, and John Woo’s (吳宇森) own health woes delayed the production of the filmmaker’s epic The Crossing <太平輪> by nearly five years, but shooting for the film is finally underway in Beijing.
The press caught up to the secret filming of The Crossing on July 6, where a smiling Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) was seen working on set. Wearing a black T-shirt, a pair of khaki pants, and sporting a short side-swept hairstyle, Takeshi was in high spirits. The 39-year-old was earlier criticized by netizens for aging poorly after photos of his commercial ad with an airline was released, but the critics withdrew their complaints after seeing the much more youthful Takeshi on the set of The Crossing. They praised, “The god is back!”
The Crossing, directed and produced by John Woo, tells the story of three couples who are swept in a fleeing voyage from China to Taiwan during the revolutionary year of 1949. The screenplay is helmed by Wang Huiling (王蕙玲), who co-wrote Ang Lee’s (李安) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon <臥虎藏龍>, and Lust, Caution<色，戒>.
The film stars a pan-Asian cast, which includes China’s Zhang Ziyi (章子怡), Huang Xiaoming (黄晓明), and Tong Dawei (佟大为); South Korea’s Song Hye Kyo (宋慧喬); Japan’s Masami Nagasawa (長澤雅美); and Taiwan’s Takeshi Kaneshiro. Supporting actors also include China’s Yang Guimei (杨贵媚), Taiwan’s Jack Kao (高捷), and Hong Kong’s Bowie Lam (林保怡).
A co-production between the Chinese studios Beijing Galloping Horse, China Film Group, and Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, the film is also produced by John Woo’s own Hong Kong-based Lion Rock Productions. Like John Woo’s 2008 film Red Cliff <赤壁>, The Crossing will be released in two parts.
Source: Apple Daily
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
I’m quite sad that Bowie Lam is only acting as a supporting cast. He’s such a great actor and deserves more recognition!
This movie seems to be star-studded with well-known actors/actresses. Hope it turns out well! And Takeshi really looks so much better here compared to the previous photo I saw where his hair was so oily… ><
to reply your qeustion why bowie lam not cast as one of leads,,,,why not we ask “does the entertainment industry really depend on good lookings?” to reach heights like whats huang xiao ming & hawick lau are?
k-dramas are popular because of emphasis on good looking stars.
well… not only they have good looks they are good at acting too lolol
There are still some actors that are not handsome but are still recognised by their acting. For example, Huang Bo. But I still think that Bowie Lam or even Damian Lau are better actors than many not good looking actors in the film scene. But I guess it’s human nature to watch better looking guys and I admit that I am one of them too.
takeshi body is nice …not too muscular yet not too slim…his face is so youthful…this movie have best good looking actors indeed… entertainment world does really depends on good looking?
Goodlooking creates opportunity but you have to have the acting skills ore strong learning skills to stay or exceed the place/position where your looks have brought you to.
Hence, I would say Takeshi has an attractive appearance, good skills to be casted. Most importantly, he fits the role according to John Woo.
As many people would agree: there are many goodlooking korean/japanese/taiwanese guys. They could have casted other goodlooking actor. But not all goodlooking actors have the same quality in acting or fits in the role.
If John needs a “Flower Pot” he should know where to get one!!!
I guess he make sure there is no role for a “Flower Pot”.
Takeshi Kaneshiro – as cute as ever. =)
Finally, the third female lead has been revealed: Masami Nagasawa.
So who is her screen partner? We know it will not be Bowie Lam. LOL!!
Sounds dubious… how did Takashi spruce himself up so quickly? Normally you need a healthy life style, good nutrition, etc over time to look good.
Why can’t audience accept him aging anyway? It’s fact that everyone ages, it just shows that he is human.
He can be like Bowie Lam or Tony Leung, still extremely charismatic with wrinkles.
Everybody looks like crap if they haven’t shaved or taken a shower. That picture of Takeshi was just taken at a bad time.
On the otherhand, make-up artists probably worked on him for an hour before letting him on set which is why he looks so good in the above pic.
In my opinion, Takeshi Kaneshiro is the Asian actor equivalent of the American/English actor, Orlando Bloom, for the Western fans. If those two actors ever do an international thriller/espionage type movie collaboration together you folks would see that comparison better, I’d think. You folks agree? 🙂
Takeshi Kaneshiro is Japanese, but having done so many chinese/hong kong movies with chinese native speaking actors, he’s very fluent when he’s in his roles to make me not even aware he’s Japenese. I respect that of him playing chinese roles. His female counterpart in “The Crossing”, the lovely korean actress, Song Hye Kyo, I would hope she has seriously studied chinese enough to pull that off for us in this movie. In the “Grandmasters” she played the wife of IP man and she had very limited scenes and speaking roles in it, eventhough they dubbed a voice actress over hers, ofcourse, but she still have to mouth those chinese words before the camera as if she’s a native chinese speaking actress. Now that Song Hye Kyo’s playing the main lead chinese female character in “The Crossing”, it’s going to be a pretty big challenge for her to “mouth” those chinese words while conveying the very emotions of those words as if she’s native Chinese, as though she was speaking her own native Korean dialect. Yes, am sure they’ve picked a voice actress with very similar natural voice/tones as Song Hye Kyo to dub/voice over hers in the final movie, but it’s still up to this pretty Korean actress to visually convinced us in all her scenes in “The Crossing” to not even make us be aware she’s not chinese. That’s the big challenge, so I wish her the best of luck in pulling that off for us just as Takeshi Kaneshiro himself has done in those chinese speaking movies. His acting talents in doing so has always fascinated me from watching those chinese movies he did. 🙂
Takeshi is half Japanese and half Taiwanese. He speaks perfect mandarin, Japanese, decent Cantonese and English. can’t compare to syk, she’s straight Korean.
I’ve always considered him more Taiwanese (despite the Japanese name, which I suppose he got from his father’s side?). I thought he was born and raised in Taiwan…? Somewhere round there, anyway…
Well then… if that’s the case, I really hope miss SHK must have a personal Korean speaking Chinese/Taiwanese tutor going over her lines with her ahead of time ’cause the native Chinese/Taiwanese speaking viewers are going to notice her lips mouthing those words convincingly enough to pull this off, especially those close-up scenes where the male/female leads exchanging romantic/emotional lines to each other…lol I’m just saying I really hope director JW and Korean actress SHK have been well prepared to such details to make a great movie. Anyone know such measured details has been taken yet? 🙂